From Bob's Cluttered Desk

As a virtual paragon of fitness and health, I am at times encumbered by the knowledge that many of the people in my life, both near and distant, are not blessed with the excellent physical stature and well-being that I have managed to attain. Since all within the workers’ compensation industry could benefit from positive…

A session at the recently concluded WCI Conference in Orlando, focused on the “significant need to provide better behavioral health support for injured workers who suffer from injuries with compounding behavioral health challenges,” presented many good ideas, as well as generated provocative questions worth our consideration. One of those questions was, essentially, how do we…

Finally, life felt normal again. No video conferences. No remote meetings. Just a smattering of masks. This year for the Workers’ Compensation Institute in Orlando, their behemoth of an educational conference rose like a Phoenix from the desolate ashes of a detested pandemic. And not only did they manage to pull off a successful in-person…

Video streaming technology has been around for a number of years, although its use has certainly exploded during the pandemic. Many people, I included, have touted the potential benefit of streaming video as a communication platform and to expand the availability of medical services. However, it is not a panacea. There is potential for abuse…

2020 was, by all standards, a tumultuous year. Riots and looting, along with a massive increase in shootings and violent crime, gripped many major cities across the nation. This happened, perhaps not coincidentally, in tandem with a major push in some of those cities to “defund the police,” a movement purportedly designed to rethink how…

With the dramatic shift in workplace strategies since the pandemic, we have been warning workers’ compensation professionals that employment-related injuries in the home will start presenting unique challenges to the industry. A dramatic on-the-job accident earlier this month in Georgia really drives that point home. It seems a home-based “webcam model” accidentally shot herself in…

The 75th Annual Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference is fast approaching, scheduled in Orlando, FL from December 12 – 15, 2021. It is a production of the Workers’ Compensation Institute (WCI) and is unquestionably the largest and most comprehensive event in the nation for the workers’ compensation industry. This year is different in a variety of ways, but…

For years experts have been talking about the “gray tsunami” that threatened the workers’ compensation industry. The crushing wave said to be coming was not one of earth temblors and overwhelming waves, but rather a current of retirement from an aging and long-entrenched workforce. And in the aftermath of Covid and the “great resignation” now…

Kentucky attorneys H. Douglas Jones and Margo J. Menefee reported on this site Wednesday that their state has introduced legislation that would prevent discrimination based on immunization status. Specifically, they conveyed that: Bill Request 358 would ban employers from altering any conditions of a worker’s employment due to that worker declining immunization or refusing to…

It has been quite some time since we took on the topic of strippers in the workplace. It has been even longer since we discussed a stripper with an emotional support monkey. Come to think of it, we’ve never discussed a stripper with an emotional support monkey, but since one has wound her way into…